A gospel tract is simply a paper, booklet or other tangible piece of writing that explains the gospel message in some clear way with a call for the reader to repent (turn from current status making a complete change of direction toward God) and receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Please feel free to download, print, and distribute as you wish. It is set up to be one sheet of 8 1/2″ by 11″ paper, printed double sided.

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Antisemitism is a deadly shadow that has sadly always been a part of Jewish history. Where does this hatred come from? Some, in trying to point a finger to a root cause, have claimed that the New Testament is fraught with antisemitic sentiment.

Context, context, context. There absolutely are New Testament scriptures that appear at face value to be eschewing hatred toward or of Jews, however, there are also Tanakh scriptures (Old Testament) that do the same thing! In the light of the entire passage, and book, a deeper sentiment is being expressed, one that must be examined to glean the entire meaning.

Some may dismiss the New Testament based on hearsay without having had examined the scriptures for themselves. If you personally have any question about the New Testament’s attitude towards Jewish people, please let’s discuss the specific scriptures that are of concern to you. I will gladly analyze them with you, within the context of the paragraph, book of the bible, and bible as a whole. You may list out the scriptures in question in the comments section below or email. Thank you!

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Why both the Tanakh (Tanach, Old Testament) and the B’rit Chadashah (New Covenant/New Testament)?

Jeremiah 31:30-33 in the Tanakh (Jeremiah 31:31-34 in the Old Testament). “Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will form a covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, a new covenant. Not like the covenant that I formed with their forefathers on the day I took them by the hand to take them out of the land of Egypt, that they broke My covenant, although I was a lord over them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will form with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will place My law in their midst and I will inscribe it upon their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And no longer shall one teach his neighbor or [shall] one [teach] his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know Me from their smallest to their greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will no longer remember.”

Tanakh or Tanach is a Hebrew acronym that stands for “Torah [The Pentateuch] (Five books of Moses), Nevi’im (Prophets), and Khetuvim [K’tuvim] (Writings)”. The books of the Tanakh and Old Testament have the exact same content. However there is a slightly different order/arrangement between the two, and verse numbers in some instances are different. However, if you compare the content side by side, you will see that they are identical.

To clarify the word “Torah”; in it’s most limited sense “Torah” refers to the Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. But the word “Torah” can also be used to refer to the entire Tanakh.

Rabbis may include the term “oral Torah” in the word Torah. That oral Torah, also known as the Talmud, they believe was given to Moses by God.

However what it is is a collection of Rabbinical interpretations of the written Torah. There is absolutely nothing in the written Torah that alludes to the fact that there was another Torah given to Moses. If you find such a scripture, please feel free to post it in the comments section!

There is an accountin 2 Kings 22:8 and 2 Chronicles 34:15of how the written Torah was both lost and completely forgotten for over 50 years and rediscovered by the Temple priests. It is difficult to believe that the Israelites could remember a non-recorded oral law while at the same time completely forgetting what was in the written law.

The words of the oral Torahhave absent from them the familiar Biblical wording of “And the Lord spoke…” and “…thus says the Lord”.

If one reads the text of the Oral Torah, one sees the opinions of Rabbis who disagree with each other repeatedly. The Rabbis explain that whenever there are such disagreements, “both opinions are the words of God.”

However, according to the Tanakh, God does not contradict himself. (Malachi 3:6 “For I, the Lord, have not changed; and you, the sons of Jacob, have not reached the end.”; Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man that He should lie, nor is He a mortal that He should relent. Would He say and not do, speak and not fulfill?” Isaiah 40:8 “The grass shall dry out, the blossom shall wilt, but the word of our God shall last forever.”Habakkuk 3:6 “He stood and meted out to the earth; He saw and caused nations to wander. And the everlasting mountains were shattered; the everlasting hills were humbled. The procedures of the world are His.”)

Regarding other “extra biblical books”; there is a cluster of about 14 books, known as the Apocryphal books, which were written some time between the close of the Old Testament (after 400 B.C.) and the beginning of the New. They were never considered as part of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the Jews themselves clearly ruled them out by the confession that there was, throughout that period, no voice of the prophets in the land.

The Old Testament had been translated into Greek during the third century B.C., and this translation is known as the Septuagint, a word meaning 70, after the supposedly 70 men involved in the translation. It was the Greek Septuagint that the disciples of Jesus frequently used since Greek was the common language of the day. Whether or not the Septuagint also contained the Apocrypha is impossible to say for sure, since although the earliest copies of the Septuagint available today do include the Apocrypha, placed at the end, these are dated in the fifth century so cannot be relied upon to tell us what was common half a millennium earlier. Significantly, neither Jesus nor any of the apostles ever quoted from the Apocrypha, even though they were obviously using the Greek Septuagint. Therefore those 14 books are not in the Biblical Canon although they are used in the Catholic bibles.

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Our inheritance is, heaven. It is the sum total of all God has promised us in salvation.

The entirety of our inheritance will be given to us at the moment we die here on earth and go to be with God in eternity. Meanwhile as we walk out life here on earth, we are in possession of a down payment if you will, of the fullness that will be ours in completion when the time comes.

We also have God’s unbreakable promise that we will receive our full inheritance. This inheritance and as the meaning of it as our understanding, knowledge, heart, mind comes to know it more and more, deeper and deeper, is an energizer, as the entire purpose for our existence here on earth takes on a new meaning and purpose.

So, we left off on the last page with being born again. We were born once, physically. This second birth is a spiritual one. What exactly happens in that spiritual birth, in being born again?

At that timeGod gives you a brand new Godly heart through His Holy Spirit, as it tells us in the following verse:Ezekiel 36:26-27. “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit within you and bring it about that you will walk in My statutes and you will keep My ordinances and do [them]”

What follows is

Our destination when we die here on earth, is now to everlasting life with God. Heaven (Colossians 1:10-14).

The flesh (our sin nature)is crucified through the cross of Christ (Galatians 5:24).

Our sourceof strength is “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). This is why the joy of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10)!

Positionally we ARE all of this and we POSSESS, all of this, FOREVER. These scriptures are powerful motivators.

However,we still have to walk out this life here on earth (experientially) (Philippians 2:12-13). How? “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

Our soul hasdied with Christ and we have a new soul (a new mind/heart, new emotions, a freed will), our spirit has been resurrected from the dead, and the Holy Spirit dwells in us, so the “old man” is dead. Our body at the end of our time here will be changed, redeemed, glorified, fully healed and whole, healthy in every way, but right now, it is not. That is the only part of us not yet redeemed so sin and it’s effects still dwell there (Romans 8:9-17).

Where we focus is how we will think, and ultimately behave. The mind of Christ, “the new man”, can now say no to sin. The voice telling us to sin originates from the flesh. It is an ongoing battle while living life here on this earth (Romans 6:11, Romans 6:14, Romans 7, Romans 8:14).

Our self-focused (or fleshly) efforts to live this life produce an abundance of the works of the flesh; sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these (Galatians 5:19-21).

Our salvationallows our missteps, our sin, but it is not a license to do whatever we want (Romans 6). God absolutely will be working in the life of a born again person. So if someone feels they can do whatever they want now that they are “saved”, it might be a good time to have them check if they are truly in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5, Matthew 7:21, Luke 6:46, James 1:22)

But, as a reassurance, “If Saved, Always Saved.” We are eternally secure because we have been sealed at salvation. “So that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory” (2 Corinthians 1:22, Ephesians 1:12-14, John 6:37, John 10:27-29, Romans 11:29).

Please, please, please…if you have ANY genuine questions, comments, concerns, thoughts, that you would like to share or express, please contact us! Thank you!

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After Adam and Eve sinned they covered themselves with fig leaves, but God quickly covered them with animal skins because their attempts to cover themselves was not acceptable to God.

Fascinating that to create the animal skins, a cut had to be made in them, and blood was shed for them. In Hebrew it is kārat berît, which literally means “cut a covenant.” From the moment that they had sinned, God initiated His plan of redemption so they could be redeemed back to Him.

From the time that Adam and Eve tried to cover themselves with fig leaves man has been trying many different avenues to cover themselves in such a way that he could somehow earn his way into heaven.

All through the agesright to the present, people have tried to earn a right into heaven or to be considered “good” by doing good things. Many sadly are resting in the false hopes that what they do is enough because they are “better” than someone else. Charity and good works, prayer, attending a synagogue or church, being “better” outwardly than someone else, believing that for someone who is Jewish, that ethnicity earns them a place in heaven, none of these are what God looks at.

God looks at the vessel, the human body He created. Has that person received salvation, the salvation that God in the Bible defines, through the savior the Bible defines, or have they not?

Some cite Genesis 4:7 to prove that we do not need salvation, we simply need to be good. “Is it not so that if you improve, it will be forgiven you? If you do not improve, however, at the entrance, sin is lying, and to you is its longing, but you can rule over it.”

Earnest and at times successful efforts at moral reformation are certainly noteworthy as some people fight to free themselves from the outward practice of a particular sin or sins. However, the concept of sin as Scripture details renders this admirable, but ineffective in earning right standing with God.

We can cast out sin from our nature as effectively as we can eliminate poison from our body by our own energy. If you have cancer, can you grit your teeth and will it to leave? Of course not. Just as Jeremiah 13:23 says “Will a Cushite (some translations say Ethiopian) change his skin, or a leopard his spots? So will you be able to improve, you who have become accustomed to do evil.”

So, following the Scriptures, if every single one of us actually deserves judgment from God, we should not get fixated on the question, why doesn’t God save everyone? The question really is, why does God save anyone?

An even deeper question is, why did you respond to this truth (if you did) when you heard it, but someone else who heard it, or read it, even the very same presentation at the same moment, did not respond to it? What was there in that one person that caused that person to respond positively while someone else rejected it?

I might think I am more intelligent than somebody else, but is that really it?

Some might thinkI am less intelligent than them and therefore I succumbed to something that they simply will not believe they have a need of.

Some might say that I recognized my need more than somebody else recognized his need, but even that recognition is a mixture of some level of intelligence along with humility, all of which actually are from God and are rooted in God.

I have to say just as Genesis 6:8 states, I cannot give any reason other than God’s grace for why I am saved. “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” Amen, so did I. What is so awesome, right after verse 8 where Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord, verse 9 “Noah was a righteous man he was perfect in his generations; Noah walked with God.”

It was God who called Noah out, called him righteous, called him perfect, and Noah walked out that new identity that God had given him… Noah was enabled by God to walk with God. SO EXCITING!!!

When Adamfell into sin, the result was every one of his descendants (which is each one of us, regardless of ethnicity/religion/color or anything else that people might use to divide people into different groups) also being “infected” with his spiritual DNA, the sin nature. David mourned this fact inPsalm 51:7 Tanakh (Psalm 51:5 OT.) “Behold, with iniquity I was formed, and with sin my mother conceived me.” This does not mean that his mother bore him illegitimately. His mother had inherited a sin nature from her parents, and they from their parents, and so on. David inherited this from his parents, just as we all do.

Even if we live as “upright” and “good” a life as possible, every single thing we do is out of the body of a sinner as a result of the inherited sin nature. (Isaiah 64:5 Tanakh [Isaiah 64:6 OT].) “And we all have become like one unclean, and like a discarded garment are all our righteous deeds, and we all have withered like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.”

It is like a dirty pitcherpouring out the water contained in it. There will be contaminants in the water because the pitcher is not perfectly clean. It is the same with us. We have inherited the spiritual DNA of our original ancestor, Adam. We are not clean. Spiritually we are dead, separated from God.

Job 14:4“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean one? Not one.” Job 15:14-16“What is man that he should be innocent, and that one born of woman should be just? Lo! He does not believe in His holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in His eyes. Surely [not] one who is abominable and impure, a man who drinks injustice like water.”Job 25:4“How then can man be just with God, and how can one born of woman be clean?”Psalm 14:2-3“The Lord in Heaven looked down upon the sons of men to see whether there is a man of understanding, who seeks the Lord. All have turned away; together they have spoiled; no one does good, not even one.” (Genesis 8:21, 1 Kings 8:46, Ecclesiastes 7:20)

God isperfect and holy (Deuteronomy 32:4, Job 8:3) and He will not look upon sin, nor will He allow sin and evil to go unpunished.

As God isinfinite and eternal (lasting forever, no beginning or end) and since all sin is ultimately against God (Psalm 51:6 Tanakh, Psalm 51:4 OT), only an infinite and eternal punishment is sufficient.

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For someone to saythere is no God that person must know all things in order to be able to say that. None of us can claim to know everything.

Now let’s change that tobe someone saying that they believe that God does not exist. Okay, my next question would be, what evidence are you basing that belief on?

IFGod is real… THEN what?

THENthat means we are accountable to an authority beyond ourselves. That is quite the statement isn’t it?

The evidencethat God exists and is real is overwhelming, tremendous, and literally all around us in every aspect of our life.

I praythat my words in this blog will bring you a bit of hope that there is something to look forward to in this life. That in it, no matter what, in the amazing times and in the challenging and painful times, we in our situations can be given the ability to see beyond the situation to what is underneath and above it. Along with that goes the promise thatthere is a future that goes beyond anything we truly know or can fully conceive of.

To those whodon’t believe, I pray that my words will bring you comfort no matter where you are at. That a seed might be planted and you begin to hunger to know more.

So back to the IFGod is real part. Here are 10 interesting items that are great pondering points on that topic.

1)The Earth is a perfect size. It’s size and gravity holds a thin mix of a layer of mainly nitrogen and oxygen gases, extending approximately 50 miles above the Earth’s surface. If Earth were smaller, an atmosphere would be impossible, like the planet Mercury. If Earth were larger, its atmosphere would contain free hydrogen, like the planet Jupiter.

2)The Earth is located the perfect distance from the sun. If the Earth were any further away, we would freeze. Any closer and we would burn up. Even a fractional variance in the Earth’s position to the sun would make life on Earth impossible. Even beyond that, the Earth maintains this perfect distance from the sun while it rotates around the sun at a speed of nearly 67,000 mph, while at the same time, rotating on its axis, allowing warming and cooling of the entire surface of the Earth, every day, in a way that sustains life.

3)The moon is the perfect size and distance from the Earth for the gravitational pool. The moon creates ocean tides so the ocean does not either stagnate, or spill over across the continents.

4)Water is essential for our survival and has interesting, unique, and life sustaining qualities. Plants, animals, and people consist mostly of water (we are approximately 2/3 water). This colorless, odorless, tasteless liquid has a uniquely high boiling point and freezing point. Water allows us to be alive in an environment that temperatures range, meanwhile our body remains at a steady approximate 98.6 degrees. Water is a universal solvent, which carries minerals and nutrients through our bodies and into the smallest blood vessels. Water is also chemically neutral which means that it enables food, medicine, minerals to be absorbed and used by the body, without affecting them. Water has a unique surface tension. Water in plants can therefore flow upward against gravity, bringing life giving water and nutrients to the top of even the tallest trees. Water freezes from the top down and floats, so fish can live in the winter.

5)97% of the Earth’s water is in the oceans however, there is a natural system of purification and distribution in place. On Earth, to distribute the water throughout the planet, evaporation takes the ocean waters, leaving the salt, and forms clouds, which the wind easily moves to disperse water over the land, for vegetation, animals, and people. A natural system of purification and supply sustains life on this planet.

6)The human brain processes an incredible amount of information. It takes in all that you see, hear, feel, taste; holds and processes emotions, thoughts, memories; keeps you breathing, opens and closes your eyelids to blink to protect your eyes, controls hunger and thirst, moves your muscles… all of this simultaneously. The human brain processes more than a million messages a second, weighing the importance of all the data, and filtering out what is not relevant for the moment. The human brain is different from all other human organs. There is intelligence, ability to learn, remember, reason, to produce feelings, to plan, take action, and relate to others.

7)The eye is able to distinguish between 7 million colors; it has automatic focusing and handles over a million messages received by it, simultaneously.

8)Every cell in our bodies has a very detailed instruction code, DNA. DNA is a three-billion-lettered “computer” program if you will, telling the cell to act in a certain way. It is a full instruction manual that in a very detailed, specific way, tells the body how it should develop. It is so intricate that it leaves huge questions as to how this information came to be, without a Divine someone intentionally constructing it.

9)The universe operates by uniform laws of nature. How is it that we can identify laws of nature that never change? Why is the universe so orderly, so reliable?

10)The universe had a start, so what caused it? The “big bang” theory states that billions of years ago, all of the matter in the known universe was tightly packed into a microscopic cosmic “egg” and our universe began with one enormous explosion of energy and light. This, the singular start to everything that exists.

Wheredid this “egg” come from? Some claim it possibly resulted from an earlier universe that collapsed upon itself. Well, then where did that universe come from? This assumes that matter is eternal, something that is refuted by the second law of thermodynamics in physics.

Wheredid this enormous explosion of energy and light come from? Something does not come from nothing.

Wheredid the first something come from? Matter of fact, where did the very first life come from? Scientifically it has been proven that life cannot be created from something that does not have life.

The intricacy of our planet, and of our bodies, points to a deliberate designer who created it, and who sustains it. All these things point to a Divine creator, God.

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It seems that the Jews have their bible, Protestants theirs, Catholics theirs, Jehovah Witnesses theirs, Humanists theirs…And everyone says that their Bible is the Bible.

Well then, what is THE Bible?The Bible is inspired by God and is the account of God’s action in the world and His purpose with all creation. The writing of the Bible took place over sixteen centuries and is the work of over forty human authors. It is an amazing collection of 66 books with very different styles all containing the message God desired us to have.

One of the greatest miracles of the Bible is its unity. The 66 books of the Bible were written over an estimated 1,500 years on three continents in three languages by about 40 different people who, in most cases, had never met. Their education and background varied greatly. Yet the 66 books maintain an amazing consistency and harmony with each other.

Why is the Bible is true and not a bunch of fables? Another astounding reality is the accuracy of scientific statements made in the Bible, even before scientists had “discovered” these things. Just a few examples: the roundness of the earth is mentioned in Isaiah 40:22, atmospheric circulation in Ecclesiastes 1:6, the hydrologic cycle in Ecclesiastes 1:7, the law of increasing entropy in Psalm 102:25-27, the importance of blood in life processes in Leviticus 17:11, gravitational field in Job 26:7…Some interesting additional reading is this outside source “The Universe Confirms the Bible“.

There is also incredible historical accuracy found in the Bible.Archaeology has shown the events, places, and people are consistent with history. Archaeological evidence demonstrates the historical and cultural accuracy of the Bible. Archaeological findings demonstrate that the Biblical prophets accurately predicted events hundreds of years before they occurred, something that lies beyond the capability of people. The Dead Sea Scrolls have also provided impressive evidence for both the integrity of the Old Testament (Tanakh) and the authenticity of the books themselves. Archaeology has also shown events, places, and people of the New Testament are consistent with history.

The reliability and accuracy of the New Testament is often contested by critics. However, if the critics want to disregard the New Testament, then they must also disregard other ancient writings by Plato, Aristotle, and Homer. The New Testament documents are better preserved and more numerous than any other ancient writings. Because of this, they can be cross checked for accuracy, and they are very consistent. From Collier’s Encyclopedia, 1976, Volume 17, pages 465-467: “Next to the New Testament, there are more extant [currently existing] manuscripts of the Iliad (643) than any other book…The New Testament has about 20,000 lines…the Iliad about 15,600. Only 40 lines (or 400 words) of the New Testament are in doubt, where as 764 lines of the Iliad are questioned. This 5% textual corruption compares with 1/2 of 1%…in the New Testament. Over 96% of these variants are without material significance in ascertaining the meaning of the text.”

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First things first.This is not about converting to a new religion. This is not about religion at all. It is about life, real life!

Second thing. Many people do believe that this life here is all there is. If this is you, please consider that if that is true, then really what we do in this life actually does not matter as the end result to whatever we do is the same, nothingness. Some may say well what we do will live on after we are gone, in people, or in memories. But ultimately that too is meaningless since ultimately everything on this earth either dies or is destroyed in one way or another.

God planted within you the desire to live a meaningful, purposeful life, for a purpose much greater than yourself, and He alone can satisfy that desire. You were made by God, you were made for God, and you were put here for a purpose, His purpose. Life isn’t going to make a whole lot of sense without an understanding of that concept.

There is an eternal destiny. Eternal means lasting forever. No end. We are made from dust(Genesis 2:7), and to dust we will return to an eternal destiny (Genesis 3:19.) Those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awaken, some for eternal life [heaven], and some for disgrace, for eternal abhorrence [hell] (Daniel 12:2.) Isaiah 66:24 also talks about hell “And they shall go out and see the corpses of the people who rebelled against Me, for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring for all flesh.”

Heaven and Hell are real. Some may ask, what if they are not? My response, what if they are?

The document that states they are, the Bible, is true and using the same tests as any other historical document, can be proven as true. How much we have to lose by denying truth. The reality and intensity of that denial is immense. After reading about the truth of the Bible, if you have questions or points to discuss, please always feel free to ask!

You do not earnyour way into Heaven through your charitable works or by behaving well or by adhering to certain religious principles.

Your ethnicity or religious background does notgrant you entrance, not even for us Jewish people, despite what some might believe.

This is for ALL people, regardless of ethnicity, culture, religious background, or anything else.

SO, what does that all mean for you? For me? For anyone? So glad you asked!

(Please click image below. Thank you!)

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Whyhas Judaism decided that Jesus is not their Messiah or Savior? Part has to do with all the persecution and torture done in the name of Jesus by people professing themselves to be Christians. From the Crusades, to the Inquisition, to the pogroms in Europe, to Hitler’s holocaust, being a “Christian” and thename of Jesus has been associated with horrendous things.

Partlybecause theconcept of a man who is the son of God sounds contrary to the concept of one God which is the foundation of Judaism.

Partlybecause Judaism does not teach about the need for salvation, the need for a savior.

And partlybecause some argue that Jesus did not fulfill all the prophecies in the Hebrew Bible. There are a multitude of prophecies about a Messiah who will come as ruling, triumphant King and set up his kingdom. This hasn’t happened yet.

SoJudaism dismisses the fulfilled predictions stating they are wrong or mistranslations, and also points to those still unfulfilled ones and states that Jesus cannot possibly be THE Messiah.

One fascinating possibility, which can be traced to the third or fourth century, is that there are two Messiahs: one called “Messiah son of Joseph,” who suffers and dies; the other called “Messiah son of David,” who rules and reigns. The suffering Messiah is given the name “Son of Joseph” because He suffers rejection and humiliation like Joseph in Egypt (Genesis 37-41.) The reigning Messiah is given the name “Son of David” because He reigns in triumph like King David.

So are there two Messiahs, or do the Prophets describe the same Messiah who is coming on two different occasions with two different purposes?

Upon close examination, Jesus definitely fulfilled the Messianic prophecies of the Suffering Servant. He fulfilled other Messianic prophecies as well.

However some Rabbis say that the “suffering servant” of Isaiah 53 is the nation of Israel and not one person, the Messiah. You can read about Isaiah 53 here.

When Messiah Jesus returns in power and glory, He will be revealed as the longed for Messiah, Son of David. He will bring an end to the conflict which will be raging over Jerusalem, threatening the world with destruction (Zechariah 12-14, Revelation 16-19.) He will destroy the world system responsible for corruption and wickedness on earth and for the tribulation (Jeremiah 51, Revelation 18) and He will set up a kingdom from Jerusalem, bringing peace and justice to the nations of the world (Isaiah 2:1-4, Revelation 20:4-6.)

The fact that Jesus did not bring lasting peace at His first coming does not disprove that He is indeed the promised One of Israel. It is part of God’s plan that Messiah would come once to die for our sin, bringing salvation and forgiveness to all who believe, and then later return as Judge and King. The view of two comings of Messiah fits perfectly with the two distinct “portraits” of the suffering and reigning Messiah found in the Hebrew Scriptures.